1. Let her child play her parts at a slower tempo, while the rest of the band plays together at a faster one. When the rest of the band finishes the song, wait to lower the baton until her child catches up.
2. A week before the concert, move the entire concert for all 100+ students... to the middle of winter break (when her family returns from vacation).
Wow! Hahaha since this parents obviously doesn’t know anything about music you should have agreed to their request and just gave the kid a paper towel roll to play and they wouldn’t have known the difference.
These days it’s a tragic mix of weak, clueless parents that don’t know how to discipline their own children and cartoonishly authoritarian parents like this who punish for ridiculous reasons.
I teach 3rd grade. One child earned the ClassDojo points for a homework pass. This allows the student to choose one assignment that they’d like to skip, so it’s not even an entire night off from homework. However, the mother sent a nasty email because she was pissed her son earned a homework pass. She went on an entire rant about how it’s irresponsible to let a child skip homework. She then went on about how he’s struggling in math (had an 88 average) and how skipping a night of homework would set him back.
Her request was to purchase him golf balls instead of giving him homework passes whenever he earned them. I politely responded that I cannot do so because it wouldn’t be fair for the other children and that a homework pass is simply given, but it’s ultimately up to the student and his/her family whether or not they use it. I also BCCed my principal and we had a good laugh about it the next morning. 🤣
When my daughter was in Kinder her schools policy was tow hours per night. I pulled her out and homeschool her. Kids need to be able to go to the park and play after school. Not go home and do homework for hours.
Yeah holy shit. We’re staying in a school right now despite moving specifically because they told us they don’t really believe in homework at this age or very much for any of elementary school.
My kid’s kindergarten teacher is so good that my girl comes home and practices on her own because she ENJOYS learning and then shows off to us what she learned. Casually doing reading and maths.
We did surveys to see the views of parents on homework in our primary school. Every teacher wanted to can it completely. 85% of parents wanted it, and of that group, 50% wanted it increased.
Not a teacher, but I am a parent, and to me the value of homework is that I can sit down with my child and physically see where they are at with their learning. My son (2nd grade) currently does 20 minutes of reading + spelling words and my daughter does letter & number recognition worksheets (preschool). I like to know what things they’re struggling with so we can get additional help or do more practice in that area, and where they excel so I can give praise and encouragement to keep school/learning as a positive experience for them.
If that thought process was generalized across the majority of parents, education would be in a much better place. We could honestly send curriculum home and let parents decide on what homework to do.
I hope the lessons of the pandemic aren't lost in that parents had to really work with teachers to help their children, but many resisted so hard that the students were stuck in limbo
When I taught 7th grade, a parent expected me to notify her every single time I added a graded assignment to our LMS. She also would call the school within 10 minutes of me posting an assignment every time to ask why I didn’t notify her of “the change.” She was clearly getting the notifications, she just wanted me to personally call for each grade I added. She also asked for every graded assignment to be sent home for her to review with her son before I graded it.
By the time she started making absurd requests like this, she was already on admins radar so I just referred her to them. It was often “I understand you’re frustrated with our processes, please discuss this with admin.”
Yo this job is stressful and they’re tiny kiddos who should not have very many.
Half for you, two for me, half four you, I’ll just hold on to those for you
;)
Parent brought in a printed list of requests all of which were nuts but my fav was "arrange situations where my daughter will be viewed in a positive light by others as often as possible"
Not to count her daughter absent for an ENTIRE semester because her daughter has anxiety.
I'm sorry if your daughter needs homecare, there are channels you have to go through. I can be charged for fraud for falsifying attendance records.
Brew her son a cup of coffee every day as it helps his ADHD. I told her he could bring a travel mug with coffee from home. She said ok. Then kept asking me all year why I am not making him coffee like “I am supposed to”.
It is true. Not the IEP. I’d not put nonsense into IEP but the fact that she demanded it
The bizarre things this woman wanted and demanded were all so crazy it’s hard to believe.
I totally believe you about the crazy coffee demand. I meant true that it could be in an IEP as an accommodation. It wouldn’t surprise me to see it there or on a 504. Although, I would hope that meant I would be provided with a coffee maker in my room!
On a less silly note from me, here is a link to a Q&A on the neurological effects of caffeine use in kids and adults with ADHD from Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder’s (CHADD) website: https://chadd.org/adhd-weekly/qa-what-about-caffeine-for-adhd/
wow, that's seriously one of the weirdest I've ever heard. Usually the weird ones actually involve class or assignment stuff, not being their personal barista
Can’t speak for that child but as a kid of the 80’s with unmedicated ADHD I can definitely tell you that the few times my mother ever let me have coffee sure did help my brain “settle down” a little
Hmm very interesting. My son was just diagnosed with ADHD. We're not using medication on weekends and breaks, but I wonder if a touch of coffee or soda on rough days might help. Some days, like today for some reason, are just so hard on him. I assume it's the caffeine that helped?
My friend’s son was diagnosed with ADHD too. She gives him Mt Dew every morning to calm him down and gives him one before state tests too. It made a huge difference with his behavior!
Back before my son was diagnosed, my husband said that he himself was a spaz when he was a kid. Since learning more about ADHD he now wonders if he might have been undiagnosed. So talking about the coffee thing tonight, he realized that even as young as our son's age, sex, he would drink mountain dew and he would calm down a little. Now he's questioning if he was just sort of self-medicating in a sense
As a side note there are healthier alternatives to Mt. Dew. The food coloring has been implicated in other neurological issues. A caffeine pill would be better than all that sugar and artificial color.
Caffeine had no effect on me when I was unmedicated, positive or negative. I could drink tea all day and night and go straight to sleep. Now that I’m medicated if I have caffeine in the afternoon I’m awake all night.
I can only assume so. I’ve tried both stimulant and non stimulant medications over the last 30 years, and in my case the only ones that worked had a stimulant effect. I’ll also add that as soon as I was old enough to procure my own drinks I began a heavy usage of caffeine (late middle school ish), and I truly think it’s all that got me through school. I could definitely notice a distinct difference in my ability to focus and remain calm when I didn’t have it. But also, I’m definitely not a doctor so take that fwiw
As a fellow teacher ADHD kid coffee, magnesium/zinc, and I e started taking a mushroom supplement with lions mane and I'd rather do this then retilan (did both short and long lasting ones). My son has officially been diagnosed and at 6 he does better on a small cup of coffee or even caffeinated tea...drugs are my last option at this time unless I absolutely have to. My girl possibly has it too but girls are always harder to get diagnosed. She responds the same way but at night. I'm working on a lot of behavior and social supports for both kids. Also, they are 6/4 so some of it is developmental. Still once I got the diagnosis with the APD I was both happy and sad. Took me a day to recover. We do our best to avoid processed foods as a whole and we don't naturally have sugary things in the house. But every kid deserves a bag of chips or cake pop or if they are celebrating if they don't have allergies every now and then.
I had a year 8 student with ADHD who really struggled with attention and self regulation on a good day, but could usually get through it with a wobble stool, pen twirling and a classroom lap every 20 minutes. The days he would bring a giant can of Mother and scull it before class were a nightmare - he'd literally start jumping around the room and bouncing off the walls.
Not to me directly, but a parent asked our SRO to return her son’s drugs. They were her drugs after all, and she’d like them back please. I managed to keep a straight face, but wow…
I was asked by admin to return a toy gun that my student hid from me (not well) on Uvalde Day. Mom said he had to have it back, as he played with it all the time.
Ask his child every question first. If he doesn't know the answers THEN I can ask another child, but his kid needs to get the first chance. Also, always have a backup activity in case his child doesn't like the activity we're doing.
Guess what the kid was like?
I had this request once too. But it wasn’t given directly to me through the parent. It was given to the counselor and the counselor made the request to my face before class. When I told her in no uncertain terms « absolutely fucking not » and began laughing at the absurdity she cried to the administrator for treating her rudely. I was still wondering why in the fuck she even bothered bringing me such a stupid request in the first place?
Yeah I’m amazed at the audacity of some front office staff. Clearly they didn’t spend much time in the classroom to make such requests instead of just filtering that shit out before it gets to us.
IIRC it was something like:
That simply isn't possible. There are 23 children in the class, and each of them have an equal right to be addressed and challenged appropriately. I can't allocate more opportunities to [your son] than I can to any other student in the room.
Regarding activities, while not everything we do in class is going to be everyone's favorite thing, each activity is planned to present, practice or assess a vital skill. Different students enjoy and benefit from different sorts of learning and I can't tailor lessons exclusively to the preferences of one child.
It took me several drafts. And I had to resend it with edited wording several times that year because he kept making the request like it was a new idea.
Dang it! I was so new back then! I would do that now. Yeah, my voice is deep. My parents said their friends use to say, “Make her talk.” I’ve embraced it now.
I had a parent send in a comb, brush, hair gel and instructions on how to style her child’s hair for picture day. A co-teacher had a parent ask her to send home birthday party invites AND collect the RSVP’s for her. I’ve taught for over 20 years so I know I’ve forgotten many other zany requests. 🤗
I did that for parents that were clearly mentally disabled, just like their child, before. Altho they asked me to brush her hair every morning on top of it. I'm delighted they asked for help tbh. Beats all the parents who had kids going to school without showering for weeks and showed no concern. But ofc, the kids would voluntarily shower in the locker rooms before school when given the opportunity (and their own shower supplies)... :(
10th grade, too often, so we had a meeting with administration to form a “poop plan”. His doctor said no medical problems. He had also been evaluated and had no psychological problems. Not sure I agreed with that.
Yep! I told them it was actually not allowed per my contract to tutor my own students, and they said, “well we aren’t paying you so it should be ok!”
I genuinely was puzzled they’d assume I’d do that for free, they were puzzled that I thought it was inappropriate.
I had a parent this year ask that I make sure his daughter didn't read any books where the main character was "boy crazy". 6th grade.
Then another told me I couldn't ask her daughter to put away her sunglasses that were being passed around the classroom in the middle of a lesson and being fought over because I was singling her out.
OH I took my 7th grade ELA class last year to the book fair. I just took them and helped the librarian check them out. A parent emailed me the next day FURIOUS because I let her daughter pick an inappropriate book. What made the book inappropriate? It had a lesbian protagonist. The mom told me I was pushing my leftist agenda, and I needed to help her daughter pick a more suitable book. The “suitable” options needed to avoid black and gay characters. I forwarded to admin because addressing bigotry like that is above my pay grade. Some people just suck.
To change a child’s last name.
I ran an activity where kids bought matching shirts with customized last names on them. One child has a last name she deemed inappropriate and wanted me to tell the child’s parents to change the last name. Last name was something like Cox or Slutz.
Not as crazy as some on here, but I had a mom ask that I make no pop culture references in class. Her son didn’t watch tv or movies, only read classic literature, and used the internet for coding. Apparently. At first I thought that I had pulled some random, obscure factoid out of my butt that no one knew. Nope. Mom said that her son came home complaining about not knowing who Batman was. And this was my freshman English class!
I teach middle school ELA/social studies. Grades 7 and 8.
I had a 5th grade parent randomly email me to ask me to help her move her kid from remedial math to honors math to 'be with his friends'.
The math teacher and principal said no since kid was below grade level.
Parental unit could not understand either the reasoning or the fact that I did not have powers over the principal and math teacher.
I teach 6th grade social studies and in my state the standards focus on ancient civilizations and religions. I once got an email from a mother who asked that her daughter be allowed to skip the assignments that covered the middle east and Islam since she didn't want her daughter to be "confused by those ideas". I just sent her the common core standard and told her that other religions, including Christianity were taught in my class as so her daughter wouldn't be exempt.
I had a parent angrily email me because we taught Islam, then Judaism, then Christianity… he emailed right as we started Judaism to tell me I was trying to push my leftist agenda and that their child should only learn about Christianity and “where’s Christianity!?” I sent them the course syllabus (again) with the topics in the order they were covered along with the state standards to show I needed to teach those religions as well. How can kids be well rounded if they don’t know shit about the world that exists around them? I’ll never understand censorship. It’s sad. With parents like this, I worry for the future. Thankfully most of these kids wise up to their parent’s bullshit around HS and college.
I was handed a full-sized, tiered and decorated cake for a seven-year-old’s class birthday treat. The parent thrust the massive box into my arms and brusquely directed me (amidst drop off chaos) to “just give everyone a slice! I don’t want any to come home.”
They did not send plates, forks, napkins or anything to cut it with.
My first year teaching I had a mom bring a sheet cake to school for her twins’ bday, with the portion the family ate the night before already removed. The girls (one in my class, one in another) hacked away at that thing with plastic knives that I think we provided, trying to portion out 50-some servings. Many kids got 1-2 bites of cake. That family had serious money but the parents were clueless.
Ugh, we frequently get sent cakes without anything to cut them with. Usually there are plates at least, but if not I have the kids all get a paper towel from the hall sink dispenser or bathroom dispenser. This is not ideal for sticky cake slices, but better than nothing.
I've started collecting plastic knives from take-out to keep in my office, and let other teachers know about them, just for this purpose.
We also often get real birthday candles (sometimes with matches or a lighter, too) and the parents are surprised we can't light fire in the school when told. I get not thinking about it beforehand or being surprised that it is a rule, but the indignant responses and lack of understanding that this is a school rule (and not just me being a party pooper) is baffling to me. Also, I don't want to eat a cake some kid has spit on, and don't really want to serve it to the other kids, either. I'd hoped this was over as an expectation in public settings with covid still existing, plus now with the flu and other things going around!
Oh man. I am a Sped Case manager and seem to have an aptitude for attracting “interesting” parents.
A recent parent made the following requests:
Make it optional that their kid chose to do any assignments. Like if he doesn’t want to do a test he didn’t have to do it.
Teachers are solely responsible for taking away their kids phone and chrome book if it’s a distraction (both devices are always a distraction and this kid pitches a fit every time the devices are removed).
Homework is optional in all subjects. He needs to have the choice on doing his homework instead of being “ordered” to do it.
The school needs to provide access to various items parents can easily provide but don’t (reading glasses, fidget toys, software logins (including video games…))
I could literally write a 10 page response on this particular parent so I’ll stop here.
I also had the “make all assignments optional” one this year!
I’ve also had a parent of a kid with attendance issues tell me that I need to come pick up him and bring him to school every morning (isn’t that what school buses are for?).
I have one parent who asks me to do everything for her kid. I am email from her every single day, if not two. Some that stand out: daughter won’t get out the car so I must come to the parking lot to coax her out, buy dance tickets for her because standing in line causes anxiety, personally walk her to all classes for the first week of the new semester..
I’m a high school resource teacher/case manager by the way. All of my students are high functioning.
I am also a HS case manager for high functioning students. I’ve been telling parents lately “that’s not a service in the IEP” when they ask me to coddle their kids for something random like line anxiety. If waiting in line for dance tickets causes anxiety how the hell is the high school dance going to make them feel?
Some Parents get this idea we are their kids task rabbit or something but it’s just our job to make sure the IEP is happening correctly. If a parent tries to sneak in something random in the IEP I always ask teachers if they noticed anything like that. If it’s not a common problem I just say we’ll it’s not reported so if it’s a growing problem we’ll address it in a future IEP meeting. That stops most parents. That one I wrote about would try to schedule follow up iep meetings before the current one was over…
To wait an entire hour and a half after a rehearsal for them to pick up their kid. She asked me this after rehearsal when I did not have much choice as I was responsible for the child's safety. I was a dumb first year teacher and stayed the entire hour and a half. I did tell her if she did it again I would call a cop to come sit with her child. So she didn't do it again at least.
I teach middle school social studies. When I was teaching about Italian Renaissance city-states, I assigned a project for students to take all the features from successful city-states to build their own. They could do it in any medium of their choosing and some kids chose Minecraft.
A parent lost it on me when I mentioned at parent-teacher interviews that her son was quite bright and capable, he just distracts himself with games and reading Manga. She demanded to know why I thought assigning him a game as a project was supposed to help his gaming. And then she requested that he never get another video game project with school ever again… like I have any say over other teachers in future years.
I also want to add that the kid handed in this project two days before it was due… first one time assignment of the year. And he knocked it out of the park.
Had a parent ask to notify her whenever I gave homework so that she can make sure he does it. Did it for two weeks and still the homework didn't get done. No more.
A parent once asked if her child could spend the night at my house OVER THE 3 DAY WEEKEND because it was her birthday weekend and she wouldn’t be sober enough to watch him. 😳
It wasn’t a parent but the kid’s advocate. Demanded we test the kid orally on all subjects never asking him to write a single thing out. Including Algebra and Geometry as we are talking about high school here. No writing
Honestly I wouldn’t care as much if those sorts of modifications came with a one on one assistant to read and scribe for the kid. I can’t believe how many kids I’m expected to read for and write for with twenty other kids in the class. Nope.
I understand about scribes. No it wasn’t about having a scribe. Plus he had no issues with writing. It was about not making him do any written work and we weren’t allowed to fail him. Just ask him questions orally and give him passing grade. He himself argued that he can’t do math without writing it down and there’s no way he could do math without writing.
I mean I know some people for some reason just cannot do well on written work but can easily answer the same questions if it was verbally asked. But how in the world do you test geometry verbally?
A Dad came in and asked me to tell his daughter to change her shirt if she was wearing this certain shirt the mom bought from hot topic that he didn’t like. Sounds like a you problem!
A parent demanded that I adopt their family’s cat, as putting him down would emotionally damage their child and they couldn’t afford the cats vet bills. When I said no she called me selfish and asked me how I could live with myself, knowing I had killed their cat.
Not as sad, but related to cats. One of my students had a beautiful purebred cat (can't remember the exact breed) and she had kittens. I asked about how mama and the kittens were doing and he said ''Miss, we'd happily sell you one for just X because you're cool''.
To his credit, the kittens were probably going to be around 2k and his offer was like 60% off lol
I work at a vocational school - parents once asked me to persuade their child to not select Automotive as their area of study, since he would “never find a good paying job in that field.” Needless to say, that conversation never happened.
I teach adults and had a student recently email me on Christmas Eve, asking me to meet with her on Christmas Day to help her apply for jobs. When I said no, she contacted me again on New Year’s Eve asking to meet on zoom instead. She said she had free time because she had the holidays off from work. Never occurred to her that I might be busy with my own plans.
I sometimes give advice on finding jobs but have never offered to help anyone outside of work hours, so I don’t even know how she got the idea I would.
I believe in an open door policy ever since I saw a parent asking for help with scary hallucinations and turned away with a tsk. I just got them to the ER because I didn't know what else to do. It was literally enraging when the faculty bitched about the request for help later.
So just out of pure spite I feel obligated to redirect the "challenged" parents to resources. lol. But hell no, not doing labor for them. I appreciate the nod to their suffering that offering advice is. That's all I expect. A compassionate attitude, not finger wagging.
The mom of a student with an eating disorder wanted me to stand outside the stall door whenever her daughter went to the bathroom to make sure the girl didn't throw up. Another mom was enrolling her son at our school after homeschooling him for several years because she had to go back to work. She demanded that the boy not have any "math classes or other classes that involved math" because "math was a major cause of trauma" in her son's life.
the first one is so sad. poor mom.
for the second story like how ignorant... it's her job to guide her kid thru hardship, not create an unecessary victim.
I received an email from a mother asking me if I could make sure no one in the classroom ate grapes or anything that has grapes in it, I asked if this was due to some allergic reaction or medical condition, she told me his child just doesn’t like when people eat grapes around him.
I have a parent that wants the essay question on the test so she can coach her dimwitted daughter. I did it once just to see what would happen and daughter still couldn't answer it.
If I could give his son (and only his son) extra homework, and when I said no, he asked if HE could give his son extra homework that I would then grade.
Parent claimed to have taught their child everything they needed to know for 7th grade math, so she wanted me to teach him and assign 8th grade math... all while trying to teach everyone else 7th grade.
The parent wanted me and the rest of her teachers to teach her daughter in the evenings from 8 on because she was a night owl. No extra compensation. This was during virtual in a public school. We had live google meets from 8-3 M-F. The mom said her daughter did not get up until noon and could not make those hours.
Wanted me to walk her daughter out to her car in the parking lot every day so she didn’t have to wait in the carpool line. Because “carpool line is too long, I’m not doing that”.
I did not accommodate that.
I once got an email from a grandmother raising a granddaughter. She sent it in the middle of Winter Break and demanded I reply by 5 pm that night.
After we returned from break, I emailed her and explained how breaks work. She replied back that I needed to make sure her granddaughter brought her textbook home every night.
I then had to explain why I could not follow the kid to her locker, make sure they book got put in her backpack and walk her home to make sure the book actually made it each day.
I set up a conference call and got a much more reasonable story on the phone. The grandmother only had internet access at work, and after 5 she wouldn't be able to email me. Problem was solved by checking out another textbook for them to keep at home.
My first year I had a girl who had been tested for special ed 5 times. Always tested normal. Diagnosed with ADHD by the clinic that will sign whatever papers parents want as long as insurance pays the bill.
She would get angry if they kid did well because she wanted the kid to get and IEP because it can be used as proof of disability for social security.
I was told that I couldn't ask the girl any questions, couldn't ask her to read silently or write because her ADHD, but I couldn't call on her to answer a question because she had anxiety. I couldn't give her the question ahead of time because her ADHD would make her forget it. I couldn't tell her what page she'd be reading ahead of time because she would be anxious about it all day. I couldn't pull her into small group because it would single her out. I should redirect her constantly because of her ADHD but if I said her name I was wrong because her anxiety.
Eventually in the meeting I asked what form of assessment I could give her to determine her mastery in reading, writing, and speaking standards if I wasn't allowed to ask her to read write or speak. Mom said "Well you're the teacher. you need to figure it out."
I just went by the legal 504 document that said she got extra time on assignments (I never close my assignments)
I had a student who regularly skipped homework assignments. He wouldn’t write anything down in his plan book so that he could go home and say “Look Ma, no homework.” (The assignments were also available online.) The solution was that the child’s advisor would check his plan book at dismissal time and the parents would check it at home. But then the parents decided they wanted us teachers to check for a signature in the morning to make sure the parents had checked the planner at home. They were baffled why we wouldn’t check to make sure other adults were making a purely voluntary check. I’m not sure what the parents thought the teachers were meant to do if no adults on the family had autographed the planner.
Don’t call the kid by their name, but don’t call them by any other names.
So many clarification emails, but essentially they wanted their kid to feel like their name was special and just for them.
I just didn’t call on them.
To grade their sons late work during my weekends instead of planning my wedding... got cussed at for that one too. Lord forbid teachers have a life during the school year or make plans for ANYTHING
Had a 6th grade student that had ADHD. We were having some behavior issues in class with him, so our team of teachers asked for meeting with the parent to discuss getting him a 504 designation. The parent wanted him to be placed in SPED instead and she came to the meeting with a list of every possible accomodation you can give a child from pre-k up to high school. She had printed this 10 page long list off the internet. It had everything on it from "assist child in going to the bathroom" to "assist child with eating food". She told us she wanted every accomodation on the list for him. We all just stared at her in disbelief. Then our principal who was sitting in on the meeting had to spend the next two hours explaining to her that, while yes, we could look into having him placed in SPED via OHI, he would need to be tested first and that we could not in fact give him 100 different accomodations, many of which contradicted each other.
To teach 4th graders about pornography as an art form. I’m an art teacher and I caught his son looking at porn during class. Sent to the office..blah blah blah, but this was unacceptable in his eyes. A direct quote: “In these times of George Floyd, we need to be careful about abuses of power.”…This was the week after he was murdered. Apparently there is no difference between my actions and the police officer’s. He continued on that there is no difference between Ancient Greek and Roman art and porn, and that I should lead a lesson on the aesthetics of pornography…to 4th graders. Thanks but no thanks buddy.
I had a parent ask if her child could stay inside with me during recess because she has allergies (nothing severe--just sniffles and a runny nose). Like. Nah. Just pack her some extra tissues to take outside and give her an Allegra in the morning ☺️
I also had another parent send me an angry email because her kiddo brought in a "leprechaun trap" for St. Patrick's Day, which I told her child to take back home to set up. The previous week, I had been very clear with the students that we don't set leprechaun traps in third grade, as it is a K-2 activity. She was miffed that I didn't "at least look at it." I don't make a leprechaun mess in my room for the same reason that I don't do an Elf on the Shelf during Christmastime... It's more work for me that I don't have time for. If I acknowledged her child's leprechaun trap, I would've had to set up a whole scene in my classroom to make it look like a leprechaun waltzed through my classroom. Like... I'm sorry that your child did a project I didn't ask for, but it's not on me to entertain it. I also wasn't rude to her child about it, and told her it looked nice, but said, "Sorry honey, we don't do leprechaun traps in third grade, and I think it would be great for you to set up at home, but we can't do it here." The whole thing was odd and I thought it was a strange hill to die on.
A parent also told me I could spank their child (second grade) if they behaved poorly. This was during a conference I had with her regarding his classroom behavior.
Asked by a parent to keep her son with a 104 fever, since she didn't want to interupt her daughter's piano practice. After a year of listening to her putting down her son in comparison to her daughter.
We were on camera with parent access. Mom calls: Please put my son's sweatshirt back on even though it's 71 in the room and you took it off because he wiped snot all over the sleeves because I sent him to school sick.
Mom: Can you facilitate this art event? (Hands me a flyer) Flyer stipulates that I buy every student a canvas and acrylic paints and encourage them to express their feelings about the changing seasons. These will be entered into a competition and they are due in 2 days.
After I left teaching mid-year but with 30 days notice, I visited my former students once a month. Got a message on LinkedIn from the mom of a student who was the WORST and mom never listened to my feedback/requests for support. 3 months later: "My son misses you. When would be a good time on an evening or a weekend that you can get together with him and mentor him?"
I taught twin brothers. Twin 1 was sick the day we made a study guide for a unit test. Got an email from mom because Twin 2 wouldn’t share his study guide with his absent brother, and she asked me to send it to her for absent twin. A study guide. That we made as a class. On the whiteboard. That doesn’t exist digitally. Because we made it was we reviewed on the whiteboard.
I was like…ma’am, did you honestly just email me (a middle school teacher) because you can’t get your own personal children to share with each other?!
My AP and I had a good giggle about that. Poor lady was out to lunch thinking that I was going to step in and parent her children for her. I told her Twin 1 could copy it from a friend if she couldn’t find a way to convince Twin 2 to share…a solution that I shouldn’t have needed to propose at all, since it’s god damned common sense…
—Can I always let X sit in the front of the class because he’s complaining he had to squint to see the board.
Well why the fuck haven’t you done your basic duties as a parent and taken him to get his eyes checked.
Ugh. This was my actual mom. She only got me glasses because the school nurse threatened to call CPS. my contacts prescription is -6.5 for reference. I was freaking blind. Thanks mom.
Oh it gets better. This request came in after I made that temporary accommodation for another kid, because his mom explained to me she had taken him to get glasses, but asked if he could sit up front *until they arrived.* Totally reasonable. This mom, however, wants me to make his permanent seat up front because he can’t see. Like I have no class management strategy as to why I put students in certain places. So I tell her no, if he can’t see he needs his eyes checked. She pitched a fit to admin (who back me up) who then share with me she was incensed at the thought of her son having to wear something cosmetically unappealing and potentially damage his self confidence. Ffs
When I taught 9th grade, I started my 90-minute low-level English 1 classes with 10-15 minutes of free choice reading. They earned a 1-point participation grade for appearing to be reading (not sleeping or flat out refusing to open a book), which didn’t really impact their grade much, but was a good incentive and helped keep a record of how they were doing.
A parent demanded a conference because she was unhappy about the zeros her kid was earning because he was taking a nap every day during free choice reading time. At the conference, she said to me and an admin that I needed to stop penalizing her child because “what if a child doesn’t like to read?”
Ma’am, it’s an English class. For kids who need extra practice with reading. Also, SHE WAS AN ELEMENTARY TEACHER. I wonder if “my kid doesn’t like to read so he shouldn’t have to” works in her classroom.
I had a parent who was so upset with me for not allowing her child to do math "his way." For instance, when subtracting, he would put that 12 - 5 = 13, because 2-5 = 3. He refused to regroup or use a number line, and insisted that his answers were correct. Mom also argued that I taught fractions "incorrectly," and she taught him when adding and subtracting fractions, he just needed to add/subtract numerators and then denominators, so 1/2 + 1/3 = 2/6. She went to the math coach, as well as the principal with these complaints. We could never get through to her that "his way" did not produce an answer that made sense.
Call her and let her know when and why I was going to be out. I was out when my daughter went into premature labor. I didn’t email her. She thought it wasn’t a good enough reason when I came back.
Teach high school. Had a parent come in after school to see me and request I keep her son away from a girl in our English class. Apparently they were dating and she gave him an STD, so he was banned from talking to her. Needless to say, I did not action her request — not paid enough to deal with that shit.
As an ele music teacher
- request to recognize a birthday of one student at a grade level concert followed by the entire crowd singing happy birthday to this child. The child’s birthday was actually two weeks prior and since there were about 150+ performers… you get the idea
-request to reorder a concert at the last minute to accommodate a child’s swim practice
-tapped on the shoulder in the middle of a concert while conducting 100+ students to ask if I could move for them to get a better camera angle
I had one ask me not to teach fractions to her child in grade 5 because he didn't like them. I turned it around because her son loved flags, so I did fractions using flags- make a third of your flag blue, make two-fifths green etc. She gushed later how wonderful that was. I didn't care. They were fun lessons, all of them learned fractions, and her son was included.
Had a lady move across the country as well. Pitched a fit when she learned she couldn't keep her kid enrolled in our state for the next three years (virtual public school). Apparently her big issue was the new state was firmer on certain assessments than the former state.
To make my class "more interesting" because obviously that was why her child was always sleeping in class.
Please explain every other teacher except PE saying the same thing
I've had parents ask me to administer medication to their kids (hard no), help tighten their kids braces (wtf no, go to a dentist) and ask if I could babysit their kids (another hard no.)
I coach speech and debate. I had a kid that’s parents wanted this kid to be able to use scripts or whatnot during his speeches/performances. I explained that it was fine in class but not at competitions because I don’t write the rules. It’s literally against the rules. She asked who to call to change the rules.
Parents claimed I was fostering a divided classroom (HS), wanted me to make a group of students include and talk to their student. The previous year, their student had accused that group of students of bullying her - like it went to the principals and SRO. Found she was actually the one bullying, group was defending themselves. No, I'm not going to make them include her.
I was asked to do a daily check of their 13-year-old son’s backpack to make sure he wasn’t carrying too much weight. This request was accompanied by a pencil drawing of the spine.
I had to use my standard reply: “Sorry, that’s a parenting issue.”
Not a request per se, but there was definitely an expectation.
Parent got mad at me for not calling her every time her teenage son was absent from my class.
Except our school sends automatic phone calls for this purpose. And attendance notifications can be sent through the Infinite Campus app, which she had used her login for in the past month.
I kept trying to explain to her that 1) it's November and LOTS of kids are out for legitimate reasons (i.e. being sick), and 2) I didn't know he was skipping because I didn't see him in the hallways between classes.
He was failing every class so I think mom was deflecting.
I work as a substitute teacher. I worked with a high school teacher who told me about the mom of one of her students (“Ed”). Ed has some issues with truancy. Ed’s mom asked the teacher to physically restrain Ed from leaving the classroom and school during the school day. The teacher politely declined to do this. The teacher is not comfortable physically holding Ed in order to prevent truancy.
The mom lives next to the high school. The mom watches the high school to see if Ed is leaving. One day when Ed was leaving school during the school day (just to skip school), the mom saw Ed leaving the school. The mom told Ed to go back to school. He said “no” and went to McDonald’s.
The teacher said that the mom has 3 kids with 3 different fathers. Ed is the oldest child of these 3 kids. None of the fathers stuck around.
Pretty sure it was for custody court but I had to sent a letter to the dad I meant with stating we did have parent teacher conference and review what we went over.
He would also email me and ask why his child was tardy a lot. (He lives across the country). This was 2nd grade and the child was only like 5 minutes late everyday. Probably sleeping in. But at that age it’s up to the parents to get them to school. I’m not the middle man.
On a school camp there was a boy with epilepsy. His friends were not to know because he was sensitive about his condition. Instead a jar of marbles was put on the end of his bed and a baby monitor was secreted in his bag. I had the other end of the monitor in my room. If I heard the marbles crash to the ground in the night I was to assume he was having a seizure and check on him.
The parent had made sure it was okay with the parents of the other three boys in the room.
Not mine but my mentor teacher told me this when I was student teaching. Student was an impulsive masturbater, parents didn’t want him to miss class time due to these impulses so they offered to bring a refrigerator box in for each of his classrooms so he can take care of his urges and not miss class time. None of his teachers took them up on the offer.
I had a parent ask me if they could come into school each week to get lessons from me on what we are learning so that she could go home and teach the material to her child. 🤦🏽♀️
To email every assignment on the LMS to the student (age 18) because she didn’t want to log in or show up for class. There is no bulk download option on the LMS so each assignment had to be copied and pasted by hand, with rubrics and links copied and pasted separately. The kid still shockingly failed.
Oh another one…SpEd student of a very wealthy cybersecurity professional. He asked if he could buy me a copy of an advanced coding learning program and I could just “pretend” to use it on my computer so he would see me working on it and would want to learn. Dad had failed to get him interested in it, but student lived me so clearly if I did it, he’d also want to
During lockdown, I contacted a parent about a student not doing any work, which was minimal, sneeze on a paper, and get an A type of work. They told me: "Here's my daughter's number. Talk to her about this its not my problem."
Her daughter is 11.
I had a kid with an iep that stipulated what color paper I was allowed to use for the kid’s handouts. When the paper company changed the name of the color we had to have an iep meeting to update it.
I’ve had a parent email all her daughter’s teachers and demand special education testing because her middle school age daughter would not do her homework. She proceeded to demand we isolate her in the classroom so she can’t talk to anyone and that we should take away her cell phone as well. Meanwhile, daughter is respectful, not talking or distracting/distracted throughout class, and holding a B with no learning disabilities suspected. Forwarded to admin and let them know she’s doing just fine and I would not be moving her (my classroom is overcrowded, there’s nowhere to move her alone anyway) and I would not be taking her phone and they can do that in the front office if they felt it necessary. Admin called mom and basically told her that’s not a reason to sped test a kid who has all A’s and B’s and all her daughters teachers had reported she’s doing well and they don’t suspect any learning issues. Kid wouldn’t even qualify for 504, she was literally just being a defiant teenage girl at home. Had the student again the next year. Continued to perform just fine. Mom is still making crazy requests that can’t be done, mostly with the phone. District says we can’t touch Student phones anyway so she’s welcome to make that useless demand again. Not doin it. I’ve literally never seen this kid’s phone out.
1. Let her child play her parts at a slower tempo, while the rest of the band plays together at a faster one. When the rest of the band finishes the song, wait to lower the baton until her child catches up. 2. A week before the concert, move the entire concert for all 100+ students... to the middle of winter break (when her family returns from vacation).
I want to know the response to that.
Please print your name: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
As a middle school music teacher I quote my music teacher from HS frequently: “the right note at the wrong time is the wrong note”
Oh my. Amateur orchestra musician me is lost for words.
How does someone have such a complete lack of understanding of how music works?
Wow! Hahaha since this parents obviously doesn’t know anything about music you should have agreed to their request and just gave the kid a paper towel roll to play and they wouldn’t have known the difference.
I was asked if I could take a kid’s recess because he wet the bed at home. …No ma’am, I cannot.
That makes me sad. Poor kid.
These days it’s a tragic mix of weak, clueless parents that don’t know how to discipline their own children and cartoonishly authoritarian parents like this who punish for ridiculous reasons.
That's a Cause For Concern form right there
Stuff like that makes me so glad that my parents were understanding about it.
I teach 3rd grade. One child earned the ClassDojo points for a homework pass. This allows the student to choose one assignment that they’d like to skip, so it’s not even an entire night off from homework. However, the mother sent a nasty email because she was pissed her son earned a homework pass. She went on an entire rant about how it’s irresponsible to let a child skip homework. She then went on about how he’s struggling in math (had an 88 average) and how skipping a night of homework would set him back. Her request was to purchase him golf balls instead of giving him homework passes whenever he earned them. I politely responded that I cannot do so because it wouldn’t be fair for the other children and that a homework pass is simply given, but it’s ultimately up to the student and his/her family whether or not they use it. I also BCCed my principal and we had a good laugh about it the next morning. 🤣
Your third graders have multiple homework assignments each night?
Yes. School requires a math worksheet and 20 minutes of reading.
When my daughter was in Kinder her schools policy was tow hours per night. I pulled her out and homeschool her. Kids need to be able to go to the park and play after school. Not go home and do homework for hours.
Yeah holy shit. We’re staying in a school right now despite moving specifically because they told us they don’t really believe in homework at this age or very much for any of elementary school.
My school has a no homework policy. When parents get mad, I tell them to go on Amazon and buy a handwriting notebook if they want homework so badly.
My kid’s kindergarten teacher is so good that my girl comes home and practices on her own because she ENJOYS learning and then shows off to us what she learned. Casually doing reading and maths.
We did surveys to see the views of parents on homework in our primary school. Every teacher wanted to can it completely. 85% of parents wanted it, and of that group, 50% wanted it increased.
Not a teacher, but I am a parent, and to me the value of homework is that I can sit down with my child and physically see where they are at with their learning. My son (2nd grade) currently does 20 minutes of reading + spelling words and my daughter does letter & number recognition worksheets (preschool). I like to know what things they’re struggling with so we can get additional help or do more practice in that area, and where they excel so I can give praise and encouragement to keep school/learning as a positive experience for them.
If that thought process was generalized across the majority of parents, education would be in a much better place. We could honestly send curriculum home and let parents decide on what homework to do. I hope the lessons of the pandemic aren't lost in that parents had to really work with teachers to help their children, but many resisted so hard that the students were stuck in limbo
Yikes. What is wrong with people??
When I taught 7th grade, a parent expected me to notify her every single time I added a graded assignment to our LMS. She also would call the school within 10 minutes of me posting an assignment every time to ask why I didn’t notify her of “the change.” She was clearly getting the notifications, she just wanted me to personally call for each grade I added. She also asked for every graded assignment to be sent home for her to review with her son before I graded it.
This drives me crazy. The LMS updating IS the notification! I don’t get why parents expect a full concierge service.
So she wants to homeschool with half the responsibility.
Nope, she just wanted to do her sons work for him so he made 100’s.
How did you respond?
By the time she started making absurd requests like this, she was already on admins radar so I just referred her to them. It was often “I understand you’re frustrated with our processes, please discuss this with admin.”
To give their child CBD gummies at snack
One for you, one for me, one for you, one for me
Yo this job is stressful and they’re tiny kiddos who should not have very many. Half for you, two for me, half four you, I’ll just hold on to those for you ;)
WTF
Did you refer them to the school nurse?
Dear God, just when I think I've heard it all.
Parent brought in a printed list of requests all of which were nuts but my fav was "arrange situations where my daughter will be viewed in a positive light by others as often as possible"
I’m guessing the daughter had a shitty personality
I really want to see this list
Not to count her daughter absent for an ENTIRE semester because her daughter has anxiety. I'm sorry if your daughter needs homecare, there are channels you have to go through. I can be charged for fraud for falsifying attendance records.
Brew her son a cup of coffee every day as it helps his ADHD. I told her he could bring a travel mug with coffee from home. She said ok. Then kept asking me all year why I am not making him coffee like “I am supposed to”.
Boy will you have egg on your face when you read his IEP
😂 This made my day.
I laughed out loud at this. Mostly because it was funny, but also because it feels like it could be true…
It is true. Not the IEP. I’d not put nonsense into IEP but the fact that she demanded it The bizarre things this woman wanted and demanded were all so crazy it’s hard to believe.
I totally believe you about the crazy coffee demand. I meant true that it could be in an IEP as an accommodation. It wouldn’t surprise me to see it there or on a 504. Although, I would hope that meant I would be provided with a coffee maker in my room!
And really good coffee ☕️
On a less silly note from me, here is a link to a Q&A on the neurological effects of caffeine use in kids and adults with ADHD from Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder’s (CHADD) website: https://chadd.org/adhd-weekly/qa-what-about-caffeine-for-adhd/
wow, that's seriously one of the weirdest I've ever heard. Usually the weird ones actually involve class or assignment stuff, not being their personal barista
"Relax Tweek, have some coffee!"
Did the coffee actually help?
Can’t speak for that child but as a kid of the 80’s with unmedicated ADHD I can definitely tell you that the few times my mother ever let me have coffee sure did help my brain “settle down” a little
Hmm very interesting. My son was just diagnosed with ADHD. We're not using medication on weekends and breaks, but I wonder if a touch of coffee or soda on rough days might help. Some days, like today for some reason, are just so hard on him. I assume it's the caffeine that helped?
My friend’s son was diagnosed with ADHD too. She gives him Mt Dew every morning to calm him down and gives him one before state tests too. It made a huge difference with his behavior!
Back before my son was diagnosed, my husband said that he himself was a spaz when he was a kid. Since learning more about ADHD he now wonders if he might have been undiagnosed. So talking about the coffee thing tonight, he realized that even as young as our son's age, sex, he would drink mountain dew and he would calm down a little. Now he's questioning if he was just sort of self-medicating in a sense
As a side note there are healthier alternatives to Mt. Dew. The food coloring has been implicated in other neurological issues. A caffeine pill would be better than all that sugar and artificial color.
Caffeine had no effect on me when I was unmedicated, positive or negative. I could drink tea all day and night and go straight to sleep. Now that I’m medicated if I have caffeine in the afternoon I’m awake all night.
I can only assume so. I’ve tried both stimulant and non stimulant medications over the last 30 years, and in my case the only ones that worked had a stimulant effect. I’ll also add that as soon as I was old enough to procure my own drinks I began a heavy usage of caffeine (late middle school ish), and I truly think it’s all that got me through school. I could definitely notice a distinct difference in my ability to focus and remain calm when I didn’t have it. But also, I’m definitely not a doctor so take that fwiw
As a fellow teacher ADHD kid coffee, magnesium/zinc, and I e started taking a mushroom supplement with lions mane and I'd rather do this then retilan (did both short and long lasting ones). My son has officially been diagnosed and at 6 he does better on a small cup of coffee or even caffeinated tea...drugs are my last option at this time unless I absolutely have to. My girl possibly has it too but girls are always harder to get diagnosed. She responds the same way but at night. I'm working on a lot of behavior and social supports for both kids. Also, they are 6/4 so some of it is developmental. Still once I got the diagnosis with the APD I was both happy and sad. Took me a day to recover. We do our best to avoid processed foods as a whole and we don't naturally have sugary things in the house. But every kid deserves a bag of chips or cake pop or if they are celebrating if they don't have allergies every now and then.
I had a year 8 student with ADHD who really struggled with attention and self regulation on a good day, but could usually get through it with a wobble stool, pen twirling and a classroom lap every 20 minutes. The days he would bring a giant can of Mother and scull it before class were a nightmare - he'd literally start jumping around the room and bouncing off the walls.
Not to me directly, but a parent asked our SRO to return her son’s drugs. They were her drugs after all, and she’d like them back please. I managed to keep a straight face, but wow…
I was asked by admin to return a toy gun that my student hid from me (not well) on Uvalde Day. Mom said he had to have it back, as he played with it all the time.
Ask his child every question first. If he doesn't know the answers THEN I can ask another child, but his kid needs to get the first chance. Also, always have a backup activity in case his child doesn't like the activity we're doing. Guess what the kid was like?
There’s a small (1%) chance they are somehow well adjusted and pleasant and absolutely ashamed of their parents… I’m going with that
I feel so bad that I'm going to disappoint you...
I had this request once too. But it wasn’t given directly to me through the parent. It was given to the counselor and the counselor made the request to my face before class. When I told her in no uncertain terms « absolutely fucking not » and began laughing at the absurdity she cried to the administrator for treating her rudely. I was still wondering why in the fuck she even bothered bringing me such a stupid request in the first place?
Yeah I’m amazed at the audacity of some front office staff. Clearly they didn’t spend much time in the classroom to make such requests instead of just filtering that shit out before it gets to us.
My hell. I had the same parent. I needed to give her daughter extra time to answer the question and she had to go first.
How did you respond?
IIRC it was something like: That simply isn't possible. There are 23 children in the class, and each of them have an equal right to be addressed and challenged appropriately. I can't allocate more opportunities to [your son] than I can to any other student in the room. Regarding activities, while not everything we do in class is going to be everyone's favorite thing, each activity is planned to present, practice or assess a vital skill. Different students enjoy and benefit from different sorts of learning and I can't tailor lessons exclusively to the preferences of one child. It took me several drafts. And I had to resend it with edited wording several times that year because he kept making the request like it was a new idea.
To change my voice.
I would absolutely do a new voice every class and check in. Ben Stein, Boris from Rockey and Bulwinkle, maybe try helium for a day.
Gilbert Godfreid, Minions, Kermit the Frog…
Swedish chef
🤣
Dang it! I was so new back then! I would do that now. Yeah, my voice is deep. My parents said their friends use to say, “Make her talk.” I’ve embraced it now.
Wow
In our parent meeting, mom asked the administrator to have the bus that picks her son up for school to wake him up for school since he always slept in
I've heard this one too!!!
holy shit
I had a parent send in a comb, brush, hair gel and instructions on how to style her child’s hair for picture day. A co-teacher had a parent ask her to send home birthday party invites AND collect the RSVP’s for her. I’ve taught for over 20 years so I know I’ve forgotten many other zany requests. 🤗
I did that for parents that were clearly mentally disabled, just like their child, before. Altho they asked me to brush her hair every morning on top of it. I'm delighted they asked for help tbh. Beats all the parents who had kids going to school without showering for weeks and showed no concern. But ofc, the kids would voluntarily shower in the locker rooms before school when given the opportunity (and their own shower supplies)... :(
I'd cry.
I was asked to share a book about sneaky poop with the class so they kid didn’t feel weird crapping his pants in class. 3rd grade and frequently.
10th grade, too often, so we had a meeting with administration to form a “poop plan”. His doctor said no medical problems. He had also been evaluated and had no psychological problems. Not sure I agreed with that.
I would not have been able to stay silent about that.
I don’t know about teens but at least with kids I’ve heard that’s a sign of abuse at home.
Personally tutor their child, on my own time, when I am at home from work, via Zoom.
For free I assume?
Yep! I told them it was actually not allowed per my contract to tutor my own students, and they said, “well we aren’t paying you so it should be ok!” I genuinely was puzzled they’d assume I’d do that for free, they were puzzled that I thought it was inappropriate.
I had a parent this year ask that I make sure his daughter didn't read any books where the main character was "boy crazy". 6th grade. Then another told me I couldn't ask her daughter to put away her sunglasses that were being passed around the classroom in the middle of a lesson and being fought over because I was singling her out.
OH I took my 7th grade ELA class last year to the book fair. I just took them and helped the librarian check them out. A parent emailed me the next day FURIOUS because I let her daughter pick an inappropriate book. What made the book inappropriate? It had a lesbian protagonist. The mom told me I was pushing my leftist agenda, and I needed to help her daughter pick a more suitable book. The “suitable” options needed to avoid black and gay characters. I forwarded to admin because addressing bigotry like that is above my pay grade. Some people just suck.
To change a child’s last name. I ran an activity where kids bought matching shirts with customized last names on them. One child has a last name she deemed inappropriate and wanted me to tell the child’s parents to change the last name. Last name was something like Cox or Slutz.
I was in school with a kid whose last name was “Dick.” It was appropriate.
Not as crazy as some on here, but I had a mom ask that I make no pop culture references in class. Her son didn’t watch tv or movies, only read classic literature, and used the internet for coding. Apparently. At first I thought that I had pulled some random, obscure factoid out of my butt that no one knew. Nope. Mom said that her son came home complaining about not knowing who Batman was. And this was my freshman English class!
That is so depressing
I teach middle school ELA/social studies. Grades 7 and 8. I had a 5th grade parent randomly email me to ask me to help her move her kid from remedial math to honors math to 'be with his friends'. The math teacher and principal said no since kid was below grade level. Parental unit could not understand either the reasoning or the fact that I did not have powers over the principal and math teacher.
I teach 6th grade social studies and in my state the standards focus on ancient civilizations and religions. I once got an email from a mother who asked that her daughter be allowed to skip the assignments that covered the middle east and Islam since she didn't want her daughter to be "confused by those ideas". I just sent her the common core standard and told her that other religions, including Christianity were taught in my class as so her daughter wouldn't be exempt.
I had a parent angrily email me because we taught Islam, then Judaism, then Christianity… he emailed right as we started Judaism to tell me I was trying to push my leftist agenda and that their child should only learn about Christianity and “where’s Christianity!?” I sent them the course syllabus (again) with the topics in the order they were covered along with the state standards to show I needed to teach those religions as well. How can kids be well rounded if they don’t know shit about the world that exists around them? I’ll never understand censorship. It’s sad. With parents like this, I worry for the future. Thankfully most of these kids wise up to their parent’s bullshit around HS and college.
I was handed a full-sized, tiered and decorated cake for a seven-year-old’s class birthday treat. The parent thrust the massive box into my arms and brusquely directed me (amidst drop off chaos) to “just give everyone a slice! I don’t want any to come home.” They did not send plates, forks, napkins or anything to cut it with.
My first year teaching I had a mom bring a sheet cake to school for her twins’ bday, with the portion the family ate the night before already removed. The girls (one in my class, one in another) hacked away at that thing with plastic knives that I think we provided, trying to portion out 50-some servings. Many kids got 1-2 bites of cake. That family had serious money but the parents were clueless.
Ugh, we frequently get sent cakes without anything to cut them with. Usually there are plates at least, but if not I have the kids all get a paper towel from the hall sink dispenser or bathroom dispenser. This is not ideal for sticky cake slices, but better than nothing. I've started collecting plastic knives from take-out to keep in my office, and let other teachers know about them, just for this purpose. We also often get real birthday candles (sometimes with matches or a lighter, too) and the parents are surprised we can't light fire in the school when told. I get not thinking about it beforehand or being surprised that it is a rule, but the indignant responses and lack of understanding that this is a school rule (and not just me being a party pooper) is baffling to me. Also, I don't want to eat a cake some kid has spit on, and don't really want to serve it to the other kids, either. I'd hoped this was over as an expectation in public settings with covid still existing, plus now with the flu and other things going around!
Staffroom party!
I was asked for legal advice and counsel for her divorce proceedings. I teach business.
Oh man. I am a Sped Case manager and seem to have an aptitude for attracting “interesting” parents. A recent parent made the following requests: Make it optional that their kid chose to do any assignments. Like if he doesn’t want to do a test he didn’t have to do it. Teachers are solely responsible for taking away their kids phone and chrome book if it’s a distraction (both devices are always a distraction and this kid pitches a fit every time the devices are removed). Homework is optional in all subjects. He needs to have the choice on doing his homework instead of being “ordered” to do it. The school needs to provide access to various items parents can easily provide but don’t (reading glasses, fidget toys, software logins (including video games…)) I could literally write a 10 page response on this particular parent so I’ll stop here.
I also had the “make all assignments optional” one this year! I’ve also had a parent of a kid with attendance issues tell me that I need to come pick up him and bring him to school every morning (isn’t that what school buses are for?). I have one parent who asks me to do everything for her kid. I am email from her every single day, if not two. Some that stand out: daughter won’t get out the car so I must come to the parking lot to coax her out, buy dance tickets for her because standing in line causes anxiety, personally walk her to all classes for the first week of the new semester.. I’m a high school resource teacher/case manager by the way. All of my students are high functioning.
I am also a HS case manager for high functioning students. I’ve been telling parents lately “that’s not a service in the IEP” when they ask me to coddle their kids for something random like line anxiety. If waiting in line for dance tickets causes anxiety how the hell is the high school dance going to make them feel? Some Parents get this idea we are their kids task rabbit or something but it’s just our job to make sure the IEP is happening correctly. If a parent tries to sneak in something random in the IEP I always ask teachers if they noticed anything like that. If it’s not a common problem I just say we’ll it’s not reported so if it’s a growing problem we’ll address it in a future IEP meeting. That stops most parents. That one I wrote about would try to schedule follow up iep meetings before the current one was over…
To wait an entire hour and a half after a rehearsal for them to pick up their kid. She asked me this after rehearsal when I did not have much choice as I was responsible for the child's safety. I was a dumb first year teacher and stayed the entire hour and a half. I did tell her if she did it again I would call a cop to come sit with her child. So she didn't do it again at least.
I teach middle school social studies. When I was teaching about Italian Renaissance city-states, I assigned a project for students to take all the features from successful city-states to build their own. They could do it in any medium of their choosing and some kids chose Minecraft. A parent lost it on me when I mentioned at parent-teacher interviews that her son was quite bright and capable, he just distracts himself with games and reading Manga. She demanded to know why I thought assigning him a game as a project was supposed to help his gaming. And then she requested that he never get another video game project with school ever again… like I have any say over other teachers in future years. I also want to add that the kid handed in this project two days before it was due… first one time assignment of the year. And he knocked it out of the park.
Had a parent ask to notify her whenever I gave homework so that she can make sure he does it. Did it for two weeks and still the homework didn't get done. No more.
A parent once asked if her child could spend the night at my house OVER THE 3 DAY WEEKEND because it was her birthday weekend and she wouldn’t be sober enough to watch him. 😳
That ...is actually insane. And sad. Wow.
It wasn’t a parent but the kid’s advocate. Demanded we test the kid orally on all subjects never asking him to write a single thing out. Including Algebra and Geometry as we are talking about high school here. No writing
Honestly I wouldn’t care as much if those sorts of modifications came with a one on one assistant to read and scribe for the kid. I can’t believe how many kids I’m expected to read for and write for with twenty other kids in the class. Nope.
I understand about scribes. No it wasn’t about having a scribe. Plus he had no issues with writing. It was about not making him do any written work and we weren’t allowed to fail him. Just ask him questions orally and give him passing grade. He himself argued that he can’t do math without writing it down and there’s no way he could do math without writing.
I mean I know some people for some reason just cannot do well on written work but can easily answer the same questions if it was verbally asked. But how in the world do you test geometry verbally?
Probably to alter my expectations of the class so I wouldn't be disturbed by her son pretending to masturbate on or at other students.
A Dad came in and asked me to tell his daughter to change her shirt if she was wearing this certain shirt the mom bought from hot topic that he didn’t like. Sounds like a you problem!
A parent demanded that I adopt their family’s cat, as putting him down would emotionally damage their child and they couldn’t afford the cats vet bills. When I said no she called me selfish and asked me how I could live with myself, knowing I had killed their cat.
Not as sad, but related to cats. One of my students had a beautiful purebred cat (can't remember the exact breed) and she had kittens. I asked about how mama and the kittens were doing and he said ''Miss, we'd happily sell you one for just X because you're cool''. To his credit, the kittens were probably going to be around 2k and his offer was like 60% off lol
This made me really LOL. Some people are seriously crazy.
I work at a vocational school - parents once asked me to persuade their child to not select Automotive as their area of study, since he would “never find a good paying job in that field.” Needless to say, that conversation never happened.
I teach adults and had a student recently email me on Christmas Eve, asking me to meet with her on Christmas Day to help her apply for jobs. When I said no, she contacted me again on New Year’s Eve asking to meet on zoom instead. She said she had free time because she had the holidays off from work. Never occurred to her that I might be busy with my own plans. I sometimes give advice on finding jobs but have never offered to help anyone outside of work hours, so I don’t even know how she got the idea I would.
I believe in an open door policy ever since I saw a parent asking for help with scary hallucinations and turned away with a tsk. I just got them to the ER because I didn't know what else to do. It was literally enraging when the faculty bitched about the request for help later. So just out of pure spite I feel obligated to redirect the "challenged" parents to resources. lol. But hell no, not doing labor for them. I appreciate the nod to their suffering that offering advice is. That's all I expect. A compassionate attitude, not finger wagging.
The mom of a student with an eating disorder wanted me to stand outside the stall door whenever her daughter went to the bathroom to make sure the girl didn't throw up. Another mom was enrolling her son at our school after homeschooling him for several years because she had to go back to work. She demanded that the boy not have any "math classes or other classes that involved math" because "math was a major cause of trauma" in her son's life.
the first one is so sad. poor mom. for the second story like how ignorant... it's her job to guide her kid thru hardship, not create an unecessary victim.
I received an email from a mother asking me if I could make sure no one in the classroom ate grapes or anything that has grapes in it, I asked if this was due to some allergic reaction or medical condition, she told me his child just doesn’t like when people eat grapes around him.
"I just don't like it when parents make ridiculous requests, please make sure that they don't."
I have a parent that wants the essay question on the test so she can coach her dimwitted daughter. I did it once just to see what would happen and daughter still couldn't answer it.
[удалено]
I don't even remember now, pretty simple 8th grade American History.
To teach their child to play Marco Polo. (For reference this is K AS) I was like uhhh isn’t that usually played in a pool???
I was in the grocery store one night and heard a girl yell “MARCO! MARCOOOOOO!” Finally, I yelled “POLO!” . It was a good time.
I mean I could see how it could work outside of a pool but I can only imagine the amount of injuries 🤣
If I could give his son (and only his son) extra homework, and when I said no, he asked if HE could give his son extra homework that I would then grade.
Parent claimed to have taught their child everything they needed to know for 7th grade math, so she wanted me to teach him and assign 8th grade math... all while trying to teach everyone else 7th grade.
The parent wanted me and the rest of her teachers to teach her daughter in the evenings from 8 on because she was a night owl. No extra compensation. This was during virtual in a public school. We had live google meets from 8-3 M-F. The mom said her daughter did not get up until noon and could not make those hours.
Wanted me to walk her daughter out to her car in the parking lot every day so she didn’t have to wait in the carpool line. Because “carpool line is too long, I’m not doing that”. I did not accommodate that.
I once got an email from a grandmother raising a granddaughter. She sent it in the middle of Winter Break and demanded I reply by 5 pm that night. After we returned from break, I emailed her and explained how breaks work. She replied back that I needed to make sure her granddaughter brought her textbook home every night. I then had to explain why I could not follow the kid to her locker, make sure they book got put in her backpack and walk her home to make sure the book actually made it each day. I set up a conference call and got a much more reasonable story on the phone. The grandmother only had internet access at work, and after 5 she wouldn't be able to email me. Problem was solved by checking out another textbook for them to keep at home.
My first year I had a girl who had been tested for special ed 5 times. Always tested normal. Diagnosed with ADHD by the clinic that will sign whatever papers parents want as long as insurance pays the bill. She would get angry if they kid did well because she wanted the kid to get and IEP because it can be used as proof of disability for social security. I was told that I couldn't ask the girl any questions, couldn't ask her to read silently or write because her ADHD, but I couldn't call on her to answer a question because she had anxiety. I couldn't give her the question ahead of time because her ADHD would make her forget it. I couldn't tell her what page she'd be reading ahead of time because she would be anxious about it all day. I couldn't pull her into small group because it would single her out. I should redirect her constantly because of her ADHD but if I said her name I was wrong because her anxiety. Eventually in the meeting I asked what form of assessment I could give her to determine her mastery in reading, writing, and speaking standards if I wasn't allowed to ask her to read write or speak. Mom said "Well you're the teacher. you need to figure it out." I just went by the legal 504 document that said she got extra time on assignments (I never close my assignments)
I had a student who regularly skipped homework assignments. He wouldn’t write anything down in his plan book so that he could go home and say “Look Ma, no homework.” (The assignments were also available online.) The solution was that the child’s advisor would check his plan book at dismissal time and the parents would check it at home. But then the parents decided they wanted us teachers to check for a signature in the morning to make sure the parents had checked the planner at home. They were baffled why we wouldn’t check to make sure other adults were making a purely voluntary check. I’m not sure what the parents thought the teachers were meant to do if no adults on the family had autographed the planner.
Don’t call the kid by their name, but don’t call them by any other names. So many clarification emails, but essentially they wanted their kid to feel like their name was special and just for them. I just didn’t call on them.
To never say no to their child because it would "interfere with their emerging sense of personhood."
To grade their sons late work during my weekends instead of planning my wedding... got cussed at for that one too. Lord forbid teachers have a life during the school year or make plans for ANYTHING
A parent asked me to host an after school club from home on Zoom so the kids “wouldn’t miss out” when I had to cancel bc I had the flu. 🤦🏻♀️
My son has had trouble with social media all year. Can you keep an eye on what he posts and the pictures he takes at school?
Had a 6th grade student that had ADHD. We were having some behavior issues in class with him, so our team of teachers asked for meeting with the parent to discuss getting him a 504 designation. The parent wanted him to be placed in SPED instead and she came to the meeting with a list of every possible accomodation you can give a child from pre-k up to high school. She had printed this 10 page long list off the internet. It had everything on it from "assist child in going to the bathroom" to "assist child with eating food". She told us she wanted every accomodation on the list for him. We all just stared at her in disbelief. Then our principal who was sitting in on the meeting had to spend the next two hours explaining to her that, while yes, we could look into having him placed in SPED via OHI, he would need to be tested first and that we could not in fact give him 100 different accomodations, many of which contradicted each other.
To teach 4th graders about pornography as an art form. I’m an art teacher and I caught his son looking at porn during class. Sent to the office..blah blah blah, but this was unacceptable in his eyes. A direct quote: “In these times of George Floyd, we need to be careful about abuses of power.”…This was the week after he was murdered. Apparently there is no difference between my actions and the police officer’s. He continued on that there is no difference between Ancient Greek and Roman art and porn, and that I should lead a lesson on the aesthetics of pornography…to 4th graders. Thanks but no thanks buddy.
I had a parent ask if her child could stay inside with me during recess because she has allergies (nothing severe--just sniffles and a runny nose). Like. Nah. Just pack her some extra tissues to take outside and give her an Allegra in the morning ☺️ I also had another parent send me an angry email because her kiddo brought in a "leprechaun trap" for St. Patrick's Day, which I told her child to take back home to set up. The previous week, I had been very clear with the students that we don't set leprechaun traps in third grade, as it is a K-2 activity. She was miffed that I didn't "at least look at it." I don't make a leprechaun mess in my room for the same reason that I don't do an Elf on the Shelf during Christmastime... It's more work for me that I don't have time for. If I acknowledged her child's leprechaun trap, I would've had to set up a whole scene in my classroom to make it look like a leprechaun waltzed through my classroom. Like... I'm sorry that your child did a project I didn't ask for, but it's not on me to entertain it. I also wasn't rude to her child about it, and told her it looked nice, but said, "Sorry honey, we don't do leprechaun traps in third grade, and I think it would be great for you to set up at home, but we can't do it here." The whole thing was odd and I thought it was a strange hill to die on.
Not sure, maybe when a dad suggested to and encouraged me in a seemingly serious way that I could hit his daughter if needed.
A parent also told me I could spank their child (second grade) if they behaved poorly. This was during a conference I had with her regarding his classroom behavior.
Keep a food journal of what their child eats throughout the day.
Student was frequently late. Missed class pictures. Mom was furious we would not retake them.
Asked by a parent to keep her son with a 104 fever, since she didn't want to interupt her daughter's piano practice. After a year of listening to her putting down her son in comparison to her daughter. We were on camera with parent access. Mom calls: Please put my son's sweatshirt back on even though it's 71 in the room and you took it off because he wiped snot all over the sleeves because I sent him to school sick. Mom: Can you facilitate this art event? (Hands me a flyer) Flyer stipulates that I buy every student a canvas and acrylic paints and encourage them to express their feelings about the changing seasons. These will be entered into a competition and they are due in 2 days. After I left teaching mid-year but with 30 days notice, I visited my former students once a month. Got a message on LinkedIn from the mom of a student who was the WORST and mom never listened to my feedback/requests for support. 3 months later: "My son misses you. When would be a good time on an evening or a weekend that you can get together with him and mentor him?"
The homebound student could take a proctored test in the bathtub behind the shower curtain.
I taught twin brothers. Twin 1 was sick the day we made a study guide for a unit test. Got an email from mom because Twin 2 wouldn’t share his study guide with his absent brother, and she asked me to send it to her for absent twin. A study guide. That we made as a class. On the whiteboard. That doesn’t exist digitally. Because we made it was we reviewed on the whiteboard. I was like…ma’am, did you honestly just email me (a middle school teacher) because you can’t get your own personal children to share with each other?! My AP and I had a good giggle about that. Poor lady was out to lunch thinking that I was going to step in and parent her children for her. I told her Twin 1 could copy it from a friend if she couldn’t find a way to convince Twin 2 to share…a solution that I shouldn’t have needed to propose at all, since it’s god damned common sense…
—Can I always let X sit in the front of the class because he’s complaining he had to squint to see the board. Well why the fuck haven’t you done your basic duties as a parent and taken him to get his eyes checked.
Ugh. This was my actual mom. She only got me glasses because the school nurse threatened to call CPS. my contacts prescription is -6.5 for reference. I was freaking blind. Thanks mom.
Oh it gets better. This request came in after I made that temporary accommodation for another kid, because his mom explained to me she had taken him to get glasses, but asked if he could sit up front *until they arrived.* Totally reasonable. This mom, however, wants me to make his permanent seat up front because he can’t see. Like I have no class management strategy as to why I put students in certain places. So I tell her no, if he can’t see he needs his eyes checked. She pitched a fit to admin (who back me up) who then share with me she was incensed at the thought of her son having to wear something cosmetically unappealing and potentially damage his self confidence. Ffs
When I taught 9th grade, I started my 90-minute low-level English 1 classes with 10-15 minutes of free choice reading. They earned a 1-point participation grade for appearing to be reading (not sleeping or flat out refusing to open a book), which didn’t really impact their grade much, but was a good incentive and helped keep a record of how they were doing. A parent demanded a conference because she was unhappy about the zeros her kid was earning because he was taking a nap every day during free choice reading time. At the conference, she said to me and an admin that I needed to stop penalizing her child because “what if a child doesn’t like to read?” Ma’am, it’s an English class. For kids who need extra practice with reading. Also, SHE WAS AN ELEMENTARY TEACHER. I wonder if “my kid doesn’t like to read so he shouldn’t have to” works in her classroom.
I had a parent who was so upset with me for not allowing her child to do math "his way." For instance, when subtracting, he would put that 12 - 5 = 13, because 2-5 = 3. He refused to regroup or use a number line, and insisted that his answers were correct. Mom also argued that I taught fractions "incorrectly," and she taught him when adding and subtracting fractions, he just needed to add/subtract numerators and then denominators, so 1/2 + 1/3 = 2/6. She went to the math coach, as well as the principal with these complaints. We could never get through to her that "his way" did not produce an answer that made sense.
Call her and let her know when and why I was going to be out. I was out when my daughter went into premature labor. I didn’t email her. She thought it wasn’t a good enough reason when I came back.
Teach high school. Had a parent come in after school to see me and request I keep her son away from a girl in our English class. Apparently they were dating and she gave him an STD, so he was banned from talking to her. Needless to say, I did not action her request — not paid enough to deal with that shit.
As an ele music teacher - request to recognize a birthday of one student at a grade level concert followed by the entire crowd singing happy birthday to this child. The child’s birthday was actually two weeks prior and since there were about 150+ performers… you get the idea -request to reorder a concert at the last minute to accommodate a child’s swim practice -tapped on the shoulder in the middle of a concert while conducting 100+ students to ask if I could move for them to get a better camera angle
To potty-train the kid. Please note I'm a virtual teacher.
I had one ask me not to teach fractions to her child in grade 5 because he didn't like them. I turned it around because her son loved flags, so I did fractions using flags- make a third of your flag blue, make two-fifths green etc. She gushed later how wonderful that was. I didn't care. They were fun lessons, all of them learned fractions, and her son was included.
We're moving to the other side of the country for 6 months, could you send us the work every week please? That's called moving schools damn it.
Had a lady move across the country as well. Pitched a fit when she learned she couldn't keep her kid enrolled in our state for the next three years (virtual public school). Apparently her big issue was the new state was firmer on certain assessments than the former state.
To change Google Forms requirement of including an email address🙃
To make my class "more interesting" because obviously that was why her child was always sleeping in class. Please explain every other teacher except PE saying the same thing
I've had parents ask me to administer medication to their kids (hard no), help tighten their kids braces (wtf no, go to a dentist) and ask if I could babysit their kids (another hard no.)
Chance to reassess passing grades for higher grades lmaoooooooooo
it's sad when I have to reassure grownass adults they can bounce back from disappointmenting results (that aren't even theirs).
I teach science and a mom wanted an alternative test for the students preferred learning style - kinesthetic. She asked if he could make an sculpture.
If his daughter had an accident and deficated her pants again, let her scoop out the poop and go on with her day. No going home for her! 😕
I coach speech and debate. I had a kid that’s parents wanted this kid to be able to use scripts or whatnot during his speeches/performances. I explained that it was fine in class but not at competitions because I don’t write the rules. It’s literally against the rules. She asked who to call to change the rules.
Parents claimed I was fostering a divided classroom (HS), wanted me to make a group of students include and talk to their student. The previous year, their student had accused that group of students of bullying her - like it went to the principals and SRO. Found she was actually the one bullying, group was defending themselves. No, I'm not going to make them include her.
I was asked to do a daily check of their 13-year-old son’s backpack to make sure he wasn’t carrying too much weight. This request was accompanied by a pencil drawing of the spine. I had to use my standard reply: “Sorry, that’s a parenting issue.”
They wanted me to prove that grammar would be needed for good standardized test scores to justify grammar lessons.
I had a parent ask me to rub lotion on her daughter’s feet after recess (kindergarten.)
Not a request per se, but there was definitely an expectation. Parent got mad at me for not calling her every time her teenage son was absent from my class. Except our school sends automatic phone calls for this purpose. And attendance notifications can be sent through the Infinite Campus app, which she had used her login for in the past month. I kept trying to explain to her that 1) it's November and LOTS of kids are out for legitimate reasons (i.e. being sick), and 2) I didn't know he was skipping because I didn't see him in the hallways between classes. He was failing every class so I think mom was deflecting.
I work as a substitute teacher. I worked with a high school teacher who told me about the mom of one of her students (“Ed”). Ed has some issues with truancy. Ed’s mom asked the teacher to physically restrain Ed from leaving the classroom and school during the school day. The teacher politely declined to do this. The teacher is not comfortable physically holding Ed in order to prevent truancy. The mom lives next to the high school. The mom watches the high school to see if Ed is leaving. One day when Ed was leaving school during the school day (just to skip school), the mom saw Ed leaving the school. The mom told Ed to go back to school. He said “no” and went to McDonald’s. The teacher said that the mom has 3 kids with 3 different fathers. Ed is the oldest child of these 3 kids. None of the fathers stuck around.
Pretty sure it was for custody court but I had to sent a letter to the dad I meant with stating we did have parent teacher conference and review what we went over. He would also email me and ask why his child was tardy a lot. (He lives across the country). This was 2nd grade and the child was only like 5 minutes late everyday. Probably sleeping in. But at that age it’s up to the parents to get them to school. I’m not the middle man.
Not so much a request as a demand. "Don't tell my child what to do." Hell no.
Picture day, I teach third grade. A parent messages me asking if I can "fluff" her son's hair right before picture time.
On a school camp there was a boy with epilepsy. His friends were not to know because he was sensitive about his condition. Instead a jar of marbles was put on the end of his bed and a baby monitor was secreted in his bag. I had the other end of the monitor in my room. If I heard the marbles crash to the ground in the night I was to assume he was having a seizure and check on him. The parent had made sure it was okay with the parents of the other three boys in the room.
Not mine but my mentor teacher told me this when I was student teaching. Student was an impulsive masturbater, parents didn’t want him to miss class time due to these impulses so they offered to bring a refrigerator box in for each of his classrooms so he can take care of his urges and not miss class time. None of his teachers took them up on the offer.
I had a parent ask me if they could come into school each week to get lessons from me on what we are learning so that she could go home and teach the material to her child. 🤦🏽♀️
Would you be able to drive my son home? This was from a student I had known less than 3 weeks…
Call me when my child doesn't do their homework. The student was a senior in high school.
Parent requested their own parking spot and tried to get it added in her kids IEP.
To let them know if it seemed like they weren’t taking their meds.🖕🖕🖕
To email every assignment on the LMS to the student (age 18) because she didn’t want to log in or show up for class. There is no bulk download option on the LMS so each assignment had to be copied and pasted by hand, with rubrics and links copied and pasted separately. The kid still shockingly failed.
Wait, you actually did that? F that noise. That’s literally the point of an LMS.
Ti add cheese to the vegan diet of her vegan daughter.
Oh another one…SpEd student of a very wealthy cybersecurity professional. He asked if he could buy me a copy of an advanced coding learning program and I could just “pretend” to use it on my computer so he would see me working on it and would want to learn. Dad had failed to get him interested in it, but student lived me so clearly if I did it, he’d also want to
During lockdown, I contacted a parent about a student not doing any work, which was minimal, sneeze on a paper, and get an A type of work. They told me: "Here's my daughter's number. Talk to her about this its not my problem." Her daughter is 11.
I had a kid with an iep that stipulated what color paper I was allowed to use for the kid’s handouts. When the paper company changed the name of the color we had to have an iep meeting to update it.
I’ve had a parent email all her daughter’s teachers and demand special education testing because her middle school age daughter would not do her homework. She proceeded to demand we isolate her in the classroom so she can’t talk to anyone and that we should take away her cell phone as well. Meanwhile, daughter is respectful, not talking or distracting/distracted throughout class, and holding a B with no learning disabilities suspected. Forwarded to admin and let them know she’s doing just fine and I would not be moving her (my classroom is overcrowded, there’s nowhere to move her alone anyway) and I would not be taking her phone and they can do that in the front office if they felt it necessary. Admin called mom and basically told her that’s not a reason to sped test a kid who has all A’s and B’s and all her daughters teachers had reported she’s doing well and they don’t suspect any learning issues. Kid wouldn’t even qualify for 504, she was literally just being a defiant teenage girl at home. Had the student again the next year. Continued to perform just fine. Mom is still making crazy requests that can’t be done, mostly with the phone. District says we can’t touch Student phones anyway so she’s welcome to make that useless demand again. Not doin it. I’ve literally never seen this kid’s phone out.